February 2009

February 28, 2009

It's a beautiful day here in Las Vegas. Lots of sun and warm temps.
We're in between Sprint Cup practices on Saturday. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was fastest in the first practice. Greg Biffle was second, Mark Martin was third and pole-sitter Kyle Busch had the fourth fastest speed. Next practice, Happy Hour practice, starts in 15 minutes.

Friday was fun here at track. We spent the whole day in the Neon Garage where fans watch the teams work on the cars and take pics of the drivers. This year many of the drivers signed autographs through the bottom of the windows. I got autographs from Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, owner Jack Roush, David Reutimann, Joey Logano, Bobby Labonte and Robby Gordon.

February 27, 2009

Thinking about going out to the Texas Motor Speedway Dirt Track for this weekend's Texas World Dirt Track Championships? Go here for more info about the event and ticket prices. Go here for a cool video -- "Dirt Track Drivers Roar into North Texas" -- about dirt track racing and meet Troy Taylor of Fort Worth, one of the drivers competing this weekend.

February 25, 2009

Texas Motor Speedway had its media day this afternoon, with a good mix of drivers either in attendance or on the satellite feed from Florida. Now if you've never been to a media day of any kind, let me give you a glimpse of what they are: A lot of questions, sometimes with various degrees of repetition, a lot more answers and some comedic moments. I, of course, want to focus on the funny little moments through the day. So here are some snippets:

Scott Dixon, speaking from Homestead, Fla., chatted about his post-Indianapolis 500 honors he received from his home country of New Zealand. His image was on a postage stamp there, but that was nothing compared to the "lamb for a year" he won: "It was a bit of a joke. I thought it was LAND for life, which I was pretty proud of that. But it was lamb so I was a little down. But I've definitely had plenty of it, especially when I went down to New Zealand. We also had some at the Watkins Glen race just after the 500; we had a few people come up and cater that. So I’m all lambed out right now."

Texas native Colin Braun had a warm welcome from TMS president Eddie Gossage. Then Gossage asked about Braun's suspension for on-track incidents two years ago: "So the first thing you ask me about is being suspended," the youngster said with a laugh. "What a question to ask."

Ryan Newman had a ball at Tony Stewart's expense while Stewart was in earshot of his on-stage interview. Newman came onto the stage before his name was announced, and Gossage asked how he knew he was talking about him and not Stewart. "I heard the 43 poles," Newman said to laughter. "I know that number. Forty-three (poles), 13 (victories), one Daytona 500. That’s pretty much all I’ve got." The two were later on stage together. Stewart talked about how frazzling it's been to develop his new Stewart-Haas racing team: "It is stressful. it’s a good weight-loss program so far." And as for any Stewart outbursts this season, Newman had the solution: "We have a shock collar for him this year. For whatever reason, my wife is on the button. I just give her a wink, she knocks him down."